Switzerland initiates transition from Microsoft to open-source software

The Swiss Confederation has launched a pilot program to replace Microsoft 365 office tools with openDesk, an open-source platform. The initiative involves an investment of 9 million Swiss francs and aims to migrate 3,000 federal computers by the end of 2027. While this currently represents approximately 7 percent of federal workstations, the long-term goal is to cover a total of 54,000 computers.

This move is driven by a desire for digital sovereignty and concerns regarding dependency on American cloud services. Specifically, military and cyber security units are moving rapidly toward this transition. The Swiss Army Cyber Command and the unit for cyber and electromagnetic operations are required to switch to openDesk by October to ensure data integrity and availability, which they argue cannot be fully guaranteed under the Microsoft cloud model.

A significant factor in this shift is the US CLOUD Act, which allows US law enforcement to compel American technology companies to provide access to electronic data, regardless of where that data is stored. This legislative framework has increased distrust among European officials regarding the security of sensitive information held by US-based providers.

Developed by the Center for Digital Sovereignty (ZenDiS), openDesk integrates several European open-source components, including Collabora for document editing, Open-Xchange for mail and calendars, and Nextcloud for file storage.